


Snake Scales and Serpent Tails - Short side chapters

by Ethril



Series: The Naga Series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Bad Dumbledore, Bad Friends, Creature Inheritance, Do Not Translate, Do not post to another site, Hermione Bashing, M/M, Naga, No obvious timeline, Out of Order Chapters, Ron Bashing, Short Chapters, Side Stories, Snippets, mentioned mpreg, more to be added - Freeform, tomarry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethril/pseuds/Ethril
Summary: Short stories to go along with the main story "Snake Scales and Serpent Tails". Updated randomly. The chapters are not in order with the main story, but I will tell you where they match up with the SSST story.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Series: The Naga Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139489
Comments: 17
Kudos: 166





	1. Finding the Chamber

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing with this idea for awhile, writing little short snippets for my main story "Snake Scales and Serpent Tails". So here we go. Hope you enjoy.

SSST - the Snippet Collection

Short 1 - Finding the Chamber

Timeline - Pre Snake Scales and Serpent Tails

Tom’s fifth year was the year that he had finally found the one place that he’d been searching for ever since he’d traced back his relation to Salazar Slytherin back in his second year. The Chamber of Secrets.

Built and enchanted by Salazar Slytherin himself, it was said to house a monster that had been left by Slytherin to be found by his future heir. There were so many rumors as to what could be found in the chambers, besides the monster, that Tom had devoted a great deal of his time and energy trying to find it. 

And then he had finally found a clue during the summer before his fifth year had started. It was while Tom had been visiting Diagon Alley that he had found an old book in a second hand store, and it was inside that book that he found the final clue. The book had been a handwritten account of the head architect that had helped to remodel Hogwarts back in the 1700’s.

Most of the book had been filled with financial records for materials that the workers would need, drawings and blueprints of the areas of Hogwarts that were to be renovated, but here and there the author had added written accounts of what the architect had seen and heard while working. One such account had been about how a man named Corvinus Gaunt had paid a great deal of money to help design a particular bathroom on the second floor of Hogwarts. In fact, the architect had written quite extensively on how aggressive Mr. Gaunt had been about controlling the remodeling for said bathroom. 

With how uncommon the name ‘Gaunt’ was, Tom was sure the man had been a relative. Which meant the only reason why he would have been so obsessed with that one room in an entire castle, meant it must have had something to do with Salazar Slytherin. 

From all the research Tom had done, the entire Gaunt line had been obsessed with their ancestor. 

It took all of a moment for Tom to connect the dots. The bathroom that Corvinus Gaunt had paid to remodel, and had even had a hand in designing, had to either be the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets or it had to hold a clue on how to get into it. 

Unfortunately for Tom, he couldn’t exactly race off to search every second floor bathroom right away. He knew Dumbledore was watching his every move, monitoring everything about him for any sign of something bad. At the start of every year, Dumbledore always took an extra interest in Tom. 

Just knowing that the old man was watching Tom, practically following him around the school between classes, made Tom’s skin crawl. Dumbledore reminded him of some of those disgusting perverts that would loiter near the orphanage and watch some of the prettier children. Tom being one of them.

So Tom had to wait almost a month before he felt safe enough to start his search. Thankfully, there were only 3 bathrooms on the second floor, two of which were down the same hall. After a thorough search of both, using every detection spell he knew as well as searching, by hand, every nook and cranny, Tom was able to eliminate the first two bathrooms. 

The final bathroom would be harder to search though, seeing as how it was not only the girls bathroom, but a favorite spot for those girls that wanted to be alone. Tom was almost positive that the bathroom in question had to be the one he wanted, since fate seemed to hate him. There was always a girl using that bathroom, which led to Tom having to sneak out of the Slytherin dorms late at night to search it. 

Finally, after years of ridicule for not being a pureblood, years of searching for his heritage, Tom would find the one place that he alone had every right to. 

At first, when Tom entered the secluded girls bathroom in a rather remote part of the second floor, he was underwhelmed. It looked like a rather typical bathroom to be perfectly honest. There were no snake motifs anywhere, nothing to honor Slytherin, not even a speck of green or silver in the design of the bathroom. He knew that the secret entrance of the Chamber had to be well hidden, but surely someone like Corvinus Gaunt would have put  _ something _ in the bathroom to reflect his Slytherin pride? 

But no. Instead Tom found normal stalls, bland stone walls, and a single large round window high up on one wall. At least the bathroom didn’t smell at all. 

The only thing odd about the entire bathroom, was the fact that the sinks weren’t along a wall like in the other bathrooms. Instead they were attached to a circular half column in the middle of the bathroom. 

“I suppose I’ll start there.” Tom muttered to himself as he walked right over to the half column with the sinks. 

At first glance, there was nothing special about the sinks. Each had a typical mirror, old fashioned taps and basins, and an enchanted towel that stayed dry and clean no matter how often it was used. 

Tom must have circled the sinks a half dozen times, examining each one over and over again. No matter which way he turned the taps, nor how many times he checked the mirrors for hidden charms, he found nothing special about the sinks. 

With a quiet grumble, Tom abandoned searching the sinks and instead began checking each stall individually. He was eternally grateful that the house elves of Hogwarts were meticulous with their cleaning. 

Despite his careful checking and extensive magical knowledge, he found nothing in each of the stalls as well. It was the same with the bland stone walls and even the large round mirror that Tom had carefully climbed up to in order to examine. 

He found nothing! This was the only other bathroom on the second floor and yet he had found absolutely nothing in it. Hell, even the mirrors were just simple mundane mirrors with absolutely zero enchantments! 

Tom was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the Chamber of Secrets was just a wild goose chase made up in order to scare little first year mudbloods into behaving. Perhaps there had been a Chamber of Secrets at one time, back when Salazar Slytherin had actually been around, but it had probably been repurposed a long time ago. 

With that in mind, Tom angrily jumped down from the window ledge. Perhaps he should go back through the architects journal again to see if perhaps he had missed something. It was possible that he had misread which floor the bathroom had been on. 

Just as Tom was stomping past the sinks, intent on leaving, his foot landed in a shallow puddle of water that had splashed free when he had been messing with the sink taps. He had been so distracted by his anger and annoyance, that Tom’s foot slipped out from under him and he fell back onto his behind with a very undignified yelp. 

At least no one was around to see Tom sprawled out on the floor of the girl’s bathroom with the ankle of his pants leg now wet from the water puddle. 

Anger swelled inside Tom and he slammed his fist down on the floor next to his side. “Why would Corvinus Gaunt pay for a blood bathroom to be built anyway?!” Tom cursed as he tried very hard not to raise his voice too loudly as he ranted. “Is that where the family fortune went? For a bloody bathroom?!” 

Tom pushed himself up angrily and refused to even acknowledge that his eyes might be a little blurry from frustration tears. He had just...he had been so excited about finally finding the Chamber, finally getting to see something his ancestor had personally made, that it was just so heart wrenching that he had failed. 

He bit his lip hard enough to draw a slim trickle of blood, all to keep from crying. He wasn’t a child anymore and he’d suffered enough in his life to have known better than to have gotten his hopes up. 

Angrily, Tom reached up and wiped away the blood with the back of his hand, turning his head towards the sink as he did so. He’d clean up using one of those enchanted towels and then head back to the dorms. 

Something strange and out of place caught Tom’s attention as he was reaching up to grab hold of a sink basin, intending to pull himself back up to his feet. There, under the pipes of the sink, was a tiny, coiled, stone snake carving. The little carving was almost completely obscured by the pipes and shadows and probably would have been completely missed had Tom not been sitting on the ground. 

Tom’s heart started pounding as quickly got to his knees and crawled as close to the carved snake as he could. This had to be it! The clue that he needed in order to find Salazar’s hidden Chamber! He had been such a fool to so easily discount the sinks when they were the only obvious thing out of place in the bathroom. 

Hope swelled in Tom’s chest and he completely forgot about his bleeding lip and sore backside as he focused exclusively on the tiny snake. 

The more he looked at it, the more detailed the carving became. He could see the tiniest of emeralds inlaid in the eye, tiny scale details carved into the body of the snake, and as he watched a tiny forked tongue flicked out of the snake’s mouth. 

“ _ Are you the key I need?”  _ Tom asked breathlessly as he waited to see if the tiny snake would make another movement. “ _ Can you share your secrets with me?” _

For what felt like an eternity, the snake did nothing and said nothing. It simply watched him with its jeweled eyes, as if waiting for something to happen. 

Tom’s mind worked in a flurry of thoughts. Perhaps the snake was less of a key and more of a  _ lock _ waiting for a  _ key.  _ Or perhaps, a key  _ word. _

The word had to be something simple, just in case something had happened to the family. Tom knew for a fact that Corvinus had only had two children, but he had been smart enough to know that there could possibly be lost relatives somewhere. From Tom’s research he knew Corvinus had been one of the last intelligent Gaunts for the last few generations. 

Not only that, but what need did he have for a complicated password? Theirs was the only family in Great Britain to speak Parseltongue, so it would be a simple thing to make it so that only a parselmouth could open the lock. 

A simple word, spoken in parseltongue, and meant to open or unlock a passage. That narrowed things down immensely. 

Tom sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment. What if he was wrong about all of this and the snake carving was just meant to be Corvinus’ signature? A last memento meant to leave a mark on Hogwarts for all eternity? Or was it a trap meant to find the last of Slytherin’s heirs and eliminate them? 

He had to take the risk, he just had to if it meant really finding the Chamber of Secrets. Finding the Chamber and claiming his birthright was the only way he could take the next step in his life long plan of taking over the wizarding world. If he couldn’t do this and prove to the other Slytherins that he was worthy, then how would he ever be able to do so on the much larger scale of the entire population? 

With that thought, Tom released the breath he had been holding and hissed out a single word, hoping and praying to any and all gods that he was right. 

“ _ Open.” _

In the span of a single heartbeat, the world froze. Tom’s hope faltered for just a moment until finally the snake began squirming into a sideways figure eight. Time swiftly moved forward and Tom scuttled backwards when suddenly the sides of the half column began to descend one by one into the floor, revealing a deep cavernous well that fell into darkness. 

“ _ Of course he didn’t add stairs.”  _ Was all Tom could say after his heart finally stopped pounding in his chest. He felt victorious that his deduction had been correct! The snake had been a lock and parseltongue had been the key. And yet, he could do nothing but glare down into the dark abyss that now stretched below him. 

Tom was just thinking that this was some sort of cruel joke when a soft rumbling answered his hissed words. One by one, stones slipped out of the wall, spiraling down into the darkness and creating a steep staircase. 

Seeing that he now had a way to descend, without having to act like a Gryffindor by jumping, Tom carefully stepped down one step at a time. 

After awhile, he started to wonder if maybe jumping would have been faster. He’d had to summon some light from his wand at one point, and after a while he was panting hard. The stairs were steep and each step was narrow, and not only that but they were growing progressively slicker the further he went. 

Just as he was trying to calculate just how deep he was, Tom came out of the long vertical tunnel. He stumbled in surprise as he came upon a solid floor, which was littered with the skeletons of many small and medium sized critters. 

Perhaps it was in response to his presence, but green torches suddenly flared to life along the walls leading away from the tunnel he had just descended from. 

The snake motifs and Slytherin themes that had been lacking in the bathroom were now in abundance in the long abandoned stone hall. The ceiling was arched and the columns along the walls were wrapped with large stone snakes with glittering jewel toned eyes. 

Despite the amazing architecture, it was obvious that the place hadn’t seen a living human in decades, maybe centuries. The walls were coated in mildew and the floors were slick with congealed slime. Tom wrinkled his nose at the stale musty smell that filled the cavernous hall and quickly whipped his wand around. Cleansing spells hit the floors and walls while purifying spells filtered the air until it was reasonably breathable. The hall wasn’t perfectly clean, but at least he wouldn’t be ruining his shoes by walking around in filth. 

Tom straightened his robes and began his journey down the hall with long strides of his legs. He was so close to finding the Chamber, he knew it, he just had to keep going!

Soon enough he found himself standing before a large iron and stone door with even more intricately carved snakes. Once again he hissed a demand for it to open to him, his entire body practically vibrating now in excitement. 

One by one each carved snake on the door came to life and turned around to slither through the hinge mechanism to one side of the door. As soon as all the snakes were gone, there was a loud clicking sound and the door began swinging inwardly silently. 

Humid dank air hit Tom hard in the face. He would have gagged at the smell, had he not gasped in awe. 

Right there before him, was a large chamber with huge walls, a high ceiling, and wide tunnels leading off in different directions on each wall. But that wasn’t what had caught his attention and had stopped his breath. 

No. His eyes were riveted on the giant statue of the one person he had only ever seen in portraits. 

Salazar Slytherin stood regally, but half submerged in a small lake of water that took up half the floor of the Chamber. 

“ _ I’ve found it!”  _ Tom muttered, his words hushed and wispy in the air. “ _ By Merlin I’ve finally found the Chamber of Secrets!” _

And despite the anger, the rage, the irritating annoyance the search had been, Tom could only think that it had all been worth it to now be standing in the same spot his ancestor had built. 


	2. Tom's Inheritance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tom had his naga inheritance.

SSST - The Snippet Collection

Short 2 - Tom's Inheritance

Timeline - Pre Snake Scales and Serpent Tails

Tom groaned softly as he rolled over in his bed. His entire body felt like he’d been thrown into a wall, a feeling that he had felt repeatedly growing up at Wool’s orphanage. What was worse than the aching pain in his muscles, especially his legs, was the unnatural exhaustion that had been plaguing him for the last month and a half. 

Abraxas, in an uncharacteristic moment of actual care, had dragged him up to the medical wing before the winter holidays had begun, but the medi-wizard hadn’t found anything wrong. His exhaustion had been chalked up to stress from studying, since it was his OWL’s year, and the anxiety of seeing his fellow students being petrified one by one. The man had given Tom a week’s supply of Pepper-up potion and had sent him on his way. 

The potions had barely done anything about the exhaustion so Tom had decided that they had been made by an incompetent buffoon. 

Thankfully the winter holidays had started shortly after that so he’d gotten the chance to sleep in every day. Since he was the only Slytherin that had opted to stay at the school, he didn’t even have to worry about anyone bothering him. 

But now he was dealing with a deep muscle ache that didn’t seem to ease up no matter what sort of pain relief potion he took. 

Frustrated beyond belief, Tom forced himself up and out of his bed and into a set of clothes for the day. He’d missed breakfast, but if he got moving now he would at least be able to have lunch. Then again, he didn’t really want to be stared at by Dumbledore who had grown suspicious with his recent lack of activity. 

Tom growled as he thought about Dumbledore. The man had once against started following him and watching him since the number of petrified students had risen to a count of 3. At this point two Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw had all been petrified. 

At first when Tom had found the Chamber of Secrets back in September and had discovered the basilisk that was magically hibernating, he hadn’t thought to release her at all. But then he had discovered the oaf Hagrid had smuggled some sort of beast into the dungeons. Tom hadn’t cared about the oaf, since the idiot regularly brought in strange and dangerous beasts into the school, but then various Slytherin students had started being bitten and attacked by whatever Hagrid was keeping close to the dungeons. 

When none of the professors had done anything about the attacks, despite it being obvious that whatever had done it could potentially become lethal, Tom had made the decision to force their hands. He made a plan and after discussing it with Sheba, the centuries old basilisk that lived in the Chamber of Secrets, they decided to act. 

At Tom’s behest, Sheba began stalking various mudblood students around Hogwarts, waiting for the chance to petrify them. The first had been a Hufflepuff second year that had been using the girl’s bathroom mirror to freshen up. The second had been another Hufflepuff that had been sneaking around after curfew. The third had been a Ravenclaw 7th year that had been practicing enchanting mirrors for his Ancient Runes class. 

And yet, despite the petrifications the professors still hadn’t done anything about there being a potentially lethal monster in the school!

Tom and the other Slytherin prefects came together after the fifth Slytherin had been attacked by whatever Hagrid was keeping and came up with a plan to try and protect each other. It worked, until the rest of the school realized that the Slytherin students were sticking together in packs. After that, the younger Slytherin students became targets for a wide range of pranks. Tom was almost completely sure that Dumbledore had had something to do with it. 

Dumbledore. Just the thought of the man had Tom seething and seeing red. He was sure the old man was encouraging the idiot Gryffindors to attack the younger Slytherins. He knew the man was also protecting Hagrid from being found out about his current dangerous pet. The man was so blatant about his favoritism that it made Tom sick. 

At least Slughorn favored students from all houses, including Gryffindor. 

It wasn’t just that Dumbledore was showing favoritism, it was that he was so suspicious of Tom. Even before Tom had released Sheba and had started the petrifications, Dumbledore had still been watching him. Having those blue eyes on him so often had Tom wanting to scrub his skin raw. 

So perhaps going to the Great Hall for lunch, when there were so few other students that had stayed for the winter holidays, wasn’t the best idea. Instead he went to the kitchens, which he had found back in his second year, and got as much food as he could carry in his school bag. He’d go down to the Chamber and spend some time with Sheba since it’d been a couple weeks since he’d last seen her. 

Soon enough Tom was sneaking his way through the school and quickly descending the deep, dark, spiraling staircase down into the Chamber of Secrets. 

“ _ Sheba!” _ Tom called out as he hurried through the hall and into the Chamber itself. 

In the months that Tom had first started visiting the Chamber, he had made a few important discoveries. 

As it turned out, the mouth of Salazar’s statue opened up to reveal another Chamber that had a very intricate stasis charm embedded in it. In that room was Sheba’s nest, which she would hibernate in when there wasn’t an heir present, shelves upon shelves of books all written in parseltongue or old english, and a large bed meant for someone of a more human body type to sleep in. 

“ _ Little hatchling master has returned to old Sheba.”  _ The basilisk was currently coiled up right next to the pond of water that the statue was half submerged in. “ _ Old Sheba wonders what kept you.”  _

Tom rolled his eyes and happily rubbed a hand across Sheba’s snout, without any fear of her killing gaze. As it turned out, parselmouths were somehow immune to a basilisk's gaze. He had asked her why, but the old basilisk had only said she would tell him in time. 

_ “The old man has been stalking me again.”  _ Tom replied angrily as he went past Sheba to go into the hidden room. As soon as he was clear of the entrance way, the huge basilisk was following him in. “ _ And...well...I’ve been feeling ill for the last several weeks.”  _

Suddenly Tom found himself in the middle of a coiled up and worried basilisk. He sighed in annoyance, but fondly rubbed at her dark green, almost black scales. 

“ _ You are still feeling exhausted?”  _ Sheba asked worriedly as she flicked her large forked tongue through the air around him. “ _ You wear yourself thin with your worries. Old Sheba fears you will knot yourself up and be unable to heal properly!”  _

Normally having someone fuss over him like this would irritate Tom to no end, especially seeing as how no one ever did, but for some reason having a centuries old giant basilisk mother him wasn’t so bad. It was annoying, sure, but in a good way that left Tom feeling oddly warm. 

_ “I’ll be fine Sheba. I’m sure it’s all just from stress.”  _ At least that’s what Tom hoped. If it wasn’t stress, then something was seriously wrong with him. He feared that if he was actually sick, then it had to have something to do with Dumbledore. The old man was always watching and stalking him, so Tom wouldn’t put it past him to go to the next level and curse him. 

It took several minutes of Tom assuring Sheba that he really was fine, or at least that he would be fine, before she finally relented and uncoiled from around him. 

“ _ I brought enough food to tide me over for a few days. Only Dumbledore will notice me missing.”  _ Tom said as he unpacked his bag on the table to one side of the ‘study’ area of the room. “ _ Slughorn is away for some event as well, so no one will be able to argue otherwise if I claim to have stayed in the dorms.”  _

Sheba laid her head on the corner of the carpet that was in the study area and watched her little hatchling with worry. It had been some time since she’d had a human hatchling to watch over, but she was fairly sure that humans were supposed to be very social with each other. She feared that her little hatchling would harm himself by being so isolated. 

On the other hand she always worried about him whenever he had to return to the surface of the castle again. It really was a ‘lose, lose’ situation for her. 

Seeing that the basilisk wasn’t about to argue with him or continue to hover, Tom decided to sit down at the desk and work on studying more of the parseltomes that filled the bookshelves. He didn’t quite bite back the soft groan of pain as he rubbed at his legs once seated. 

When he didn’t hear anything from the basilisk, Tom figured he had gotten away with the small sign of weakness. 

What Tom didn’t know was that Sheba was watching her little hatchling intently. She noticed the way he rubbed at his legs, how he couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position for them. She could hear every small gasp that came from him whenever the soreness in his legs got worse. 

Not only that, but every time she flicked her tongue out to scent the air, she noticed how Tom’s scent was slowly changing. She hadn’t noticed it at first, when she had first awoken to find the young hatchling standing before her with his glowing wand. But now that she had been around the young Slytherin Heir, she had noticed the sharp tang of venom that had developed in the boy’s scent. 

She hadn’t asked, nor did she need to, but Sheba knew that his anniversary of his birth was fast approaching. Despite the signs, she said nothing to the teen. There was still a chance that her suspicions were wrong and she didn’t want to worry him about something that may not even happen. 

“ _ You will stay here until your nest mates return?”  _ Sheba hissed out as she tried to bring her snout as close to her little hatchling as she could. 

Tom glanced at the slowly approaching basilisk. In that position she reminded him of a dog pretending to be sneaky and crawling to their owner. It was adorable, in a deadly monstrous kind of way. 

“ _ I suppose I could. I’ll need to run up to the kitchens to restock my food tomorrow.”  _ Tom leaned back in his seat contemplatively. It would be nice to actually spend his birthday with someone for a change, even if that someone could easily eat him in a single bite. 

“ _ Old Sheba could hunt for you!”  _

The quick response had Tom chuckling and shaking his head. “ _ That is quite the offer, Sheba, but I’m afraid I’ll need more than meat and water to sustain me.” _ If not for the fact that snakes could not emote the way humans could, Tom could have sworn the old basilisk looked hesitant. “ _ I’ll make it a quick trip to the kitchens and grab enough to last a week. I promise.”  _

Sheba grumbled, but did not argue further. With how fast her hatchling’s scent was changing, she worried about him being away from her. “ _ As long as you come back swiftly. Old Sheba worries.”  _

Tom chuckled and shook his head in exasperation. The old snake really was ridiculous about her care of him. She acted like a mother hen, even though Tom could take care of himself. 

At one point Sheba left to hunt for her meal. With how large she was, she had to go out and find food every other day or so when she wasn’t hibernating. Thankfully, a couple of the tunnels led out into a deep part of the Forbidden Forest so she could easily find something large to eat. 

When she returned, Tom had already retired to the bed. In his unconscious state, he had someone bunched up the blankets and pillows around his body to make something quite similar to a nest.

* * *

Just as he had promised, the next day Tom had made a very quick trip to the kitchens. He had even made an appearance in the library so that he would have witnesses to the fact that he hadn’t completely vanished. He had returned to Sheba after that with enough food to last him almost a week as well as a few reference books for his research. 

Even though Tom hated his birthday, hated the reason for his birth and how his early years had been spent, he had still accepted the cake that the elves had presented to him. He would eat it tomorrow, but he argued with himself that he would only do so because he refused to waste food and not because he secretly wanted to have a birthday cake. 

Throughout the day, the pain in his legs got progressively worse. Tom could still stand and move around, but it felt like his legs had been run over repeatedly by a tank. Surprisingly enough, the only thing that seemed to help was a magically heated blanket wrapped around his bare legs. 

“ _ Old Sheba worries about her hatchling.”  _ The great basilisk had wound herself around the large bed that Tom had nestled himself onto. 

He wouldn’t admit it outloud, but Tom was worried too. All his life he’d suffered through pain so he knew instinctively that pain like this wasn’t normal. The pain was so bad that Tom barely noticed how absolutely exhausted he had suddenly become. 

“ _ Old Sheba thinks hatchling should sleep.”  _

How could Tom sleep when he felt like his legs were being hammered and pounded? And yet the soothing hisses from the giant basilisk had an odd hypnotic quality to them. The more she circled his bed and hissed at him, the more his eyes would drift shut. 

“ _ Rest, little one, and soon you will wake to a glorious new life.”  _

Those were the last words that Tom heard before he finally succumbed to the ever pressing exhaustion that had been dragging him down for over a month. 

He just hoped that the pain would be gone by the time he woke back up. 

<insert line break>

For as long as he could remember, Tom had always been a morning person. He had to be at the orphanage, otherwise he would have never gotten to eat breakfast in the mornings. And when he started at Hogwarts he had to continue that early rising habit so that he could get all his extra studying done in a timely manner. 

So when he had started feeling excessively exhausted, sleeping in for longer and longer in the mornings, he had begun to worry that he had become ill. Even his roommates had been concerned with his behavior, even though they had never really shown much care for him. 

Now though, he woke for the first time in over a month feeling fully rested if a little sore. His legs weren’t in horrible pain anymore, but it felt like he’d just recovered from running a marathon. 

“ _ Accio bag.”  _ Tom murmured as he waved his wand, which he had tucked away under his pillow before he had fallen asleep, and summoned his bag. He pulled out a pain relief potion and was about to drink it when he felt something large smack it from his hand. 

“ _ Little one cannot drink that!”  _ It had been Sheba who had sent the vial of pain relief potion from his hand, smashing it against the floor beyond the bed. “ _ It would make Old Sheba’s hatchling ill!”  _

Tom cursed softly at the basilisk and dropped his bag onto the bed. He ached all over and his skin itched oddly. He wanted to just take the damned pain relief potion and go back to feeling relatively normal. 

“ _ It was a pain relief potion, Sheba. I’ve been taking them for years.”  _ He was half tempted to take another vial from his bag, but feared that the wild eyed basilisk would just destroy that one as well. If she knew he had more, he worried that she would try to destroy his bag just to get at them. 

Suddenly the basilisk seemed to look apprehensive and nervous, something that was rather difficult to do for a large snake. It had Tom’s eyes narrowing as he stared at the old snake. “ _ What aren’t you telling me?”  _ Perhaps the potions had been tampered with before the medi-wizard had given them to him and Sheba could smell that they were bad? It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had messed with his potions as a prank. 

“ _ You have grown into your fangs, little one, and your blood will react badly to certain things now.”  _

For months Tom had been slowly getting used to the odd way Sheba spoke, but he was too tired and too sore to have the patience to deal with it right now. 

“ _ For Merlin’s sake Sheba! It was just a potion! The same one I drank yesterday!”  _ Tom cried out in frustration. 

Now that he was awake, he was starting to feel hungry. He’d taken the food out of his bag yesterday and had put it all on the cleared off table. Now he was regretting that choice and wished he had left everything in his bag. 

“ _ Can I eat some breakfast or will I ‘react badly’ to the food that you found perfectly fine yesterday?”  _ Tom demanded as he ripped the warm blankets off of him so that he could get out of bed and go eat. 

Time froze and Tom stared down at the strangest thing he had ever seen. At first he denied what he was seeing, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head as if perhaps his sight was just blurry. When that didn’t seem to make the hallucination go away, Tom reached down to touch at what he was looking at. 

He had gone to bed wearing a simple nightshirt, forgoing pants of any type so that the enchanted warm blanket could be in direct contact with his legs. So when he had ripped the blanket from him, he had gotten a very clear view of the thing that had somehow replaced his legs during the night. 

Laying there, slightly coiled and wiggling around on the bed, was a long matte white tail that looked very much like a snake's tail. His legs were gone, and the scales of the tail came up to just below his stomach. His fingers followed the line of the scales as they climbed up along his sides and wrapped around him. From what he could feel, almost his entire back was covered in scales.

“ _ The potion was bad. It had to be. I’m seeing things because of a tampered potion!”  _ Tom babbled as he continued touching and examining the white tail. “ _ I just need to sleep off the potion. Maybe drink something. Bad potions tend to cause dehydration.”  _

Sheba watched silently as her hatchling spoke softly and quickly, denying what he was seeing with his own two eyes. She waited until he had covered his tail back up with the warm cloth that covered the bed. 

“ _ Tom.”  _

Her hatchling startled when she spoke his name, something she normally didn’t do, preferring to call him ‘little one’ or ‘hatchling’. 

“ _ This is all real Tom. This is a gift that has been passed down through your bloodline since before Salazar Slytherin. He was like you are now, one blessed by the Mother of Serpents.”  _

It had been a long, long time since Sheba had witnessed a naga inheritance. The last one had been one of Salazar’s granddaughters, who had chosen to leave Great Britain to find a naga tribe to join. 

Conflict stormed within Tom as he took in Sheba’s words. If what she said was true, then he should be happy to have inherited something such as this from his renowned and powerful ancestor. And yet he couldn’t help but flash back to a time when the matron had taken him to a catholic priest in order to try and exorcise the devil from him. He felt both fear and wonder as he very slowly pulled back the blanket to look at his tail once more. 

“ _ You are blessed Tom, so very blessed.”  _ Sheba rested her head on the bed, the tip of her snout pushing against her hatchling. “ _ For you are descended from a Goddess who gave birth to the first serpents, she who gave the first gift of magic to the world before witches and wizards existed. You are blessed by her to be so very powerful.”  _

The fear that Tom felt over being no longer human slipped away the longer Sheba spoke and the wonder filled its place. 

This was a creature inheritance, something that he remembered reading about after a lecture at the end of last year. It was rare these days, since most wizards and witches no longer coupled with creatures in order to become stronger magically, but it wasn’t impossible. 

Knowing that he was no longer just a strong wizard, but a powerful serpent creature, had Tom smiling a slow but wide smile. Now that he was calm, he could feel just how much stronger his magic was under his skin, it felt like a warm thrumming that swept through his body with every pump of his heart. 

He was no longer just ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’, not just the Heir of Slytherin. No. He was so much more than that now! He was a descendent of a Goddess! 

The plans he had made for the world were going to need to be changed a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! We're moving right along with getting our butts moved to our new home. We signed all the documents on the 3rd, got the house keys on the 4th, and then we were painting up until today. All that's left is to finish packing up the entire house, move everything over, and then do a deep clean of the old house. 
> 
> Can I just say, I'm already exhausted.

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike the main story, this little snippet collection will not be updated regularly. Sorry.


End file.
